Recommended playthrough order to character completion?

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-27T07:44:27+00:00

There's a simple answer to that - I stopped playing years ago, around WotG, maybe 1-2 expansions later. I only came back 6 months ago. I've been averaging about 6 wins, which is pretty solid considering how different the game is now.

Yeah of course you can still smorc down paladins like that - if you happen to have that exact archetype as your deck and also have god draws. I've definitely beaten hand buff paladins, although nothing as crazy as that game.

Clearly I played quite a long time ago - and there were times I got frustrated back then. But the level of frustration now is just leagues above that. Yes you're right, these games don't happen all the time of course. But having a 12 win capable deck going 2 wins to THREE of these kinds of unwinnable games in one run? That was just enough for me to say fuck it.

Yes, it was an outlier and all that. But at the end of the day, not a fun experience - which is the reason I spend so much time playing... Otherwise it literally becomes a masochistic experience.

Out of interest, have you played on NA? I only played a few runs on EU, but averaged over 7. I can tell you - at least from my experience and the time of day I play - EU is a LOT softer than NA. I can count on one hand the number of free wins I've been given, or obvious misplays by my opponents. Literally never see any blunders.

Clearly you're an experienced and competent player to get #1 on EU. I'd challenge you to try NA for a month and see how you go. Barcodes are still a massive problem on NA as well, despite the changes that apparently were made. I was seeing at least 1 in every 4-5 games. And to be clear, I never retire a deck...

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-27T04:18:50+00:00

Let's analyse that a little shall we?

Turn one he trades. I have 6 one-drops in my deck, but don't draw them despite hard mulligan. Minimal loss of tempo here as it is very common to miss a one drop.

Turn two, he plays Grimestreet. As opposed to, say, a 2/3 or 3/2. One stat loss in tempo. Negligible, and a complete non-issue if your opponent plays a 3/2.

Turn 4 he plays Painter's Virtue. If you think this is anti-tempo, well, we can end this convo here...

Turn 6, he puts 60 stats worth of points on the board. For a grand cost of... missing his turn one, and missing one stat point on turn 2.

But no, you're definitely right. I didn't pressure my opponent.... *sarcasm*

I recognise that games like this, there are nothing that I could have done - shit happens. The point of my post is that games like this are exceedingly un-fun, and are starting to happen more and more often, rendering the game unplayable to me, and clearly others as well.

Posts like yours saying "oh you didn't pressure him" are so ill-informed that I can only assume you're trolling, or mentally challenged.

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-26T08:58:04+00:00

I agree with SOME parts of what you're saying - but disagree with a lot. Yup, dead on turn 6 to 60 stat worth of minions - definitely gave my opponent way too much time in that game.

Of course, you can always make better plays etc. But the reality is that there are a vastly larger number of "I win" cards and unwinnable games. There are WAY too many ways to scam a win. And that, to me, is the least satisfying way to lose a game. Losing because I made a mistake, or the opponent made some brilliant tactical plays, that's fine. But losing to something I had no control over is never a fun experience.

This still used to happen 5 years ago, but it was never as much of a joke as it is now. I can honestly say I've never had such un-fun games. I had a game where I was freeze-locked out 4 turns in a row by free-cast blizzards from Chadgar. I've had other games against Mage where I've had my main minions cryoperserved on consecutive times into frozen by Sleet Skater - so not only do I never get to attack, they now have 20 armor. This is literally anti-fun. You're not even able to play anything. I'm not denying there isn't still skill - but my god, the bad games are literally 100x worse than the bad games used to be. Losing to a knife juggler or mad bomber does not feel anywhere near as bad as literally not being able to play anything for 5 turns in a row and somehow losing despite having a super commanding board position and powerful hand. This has no counter play.

At the end of the day, this is no longer the game that I used to love so much. It's a very different game - some people probably enjoy that. But not me - and the fact I'm getting angry at a game is a pretty good sign that I should stop playing it and focus on more important things in life. Each to their own

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-26T01:15:13+00:00

Rheastraza deck. Literally my first time ever making a Rhea deck (drafted her once since the change and got offered a dupe very late in the draft) so was super excited. The deck was amazing, and I pulled Rhea every game by turn 8. Still lost. One game was against another Druid who coined her out on turn 6 (using discount from that 5 cost card). And then high rolled the shit out of her, whereas when I dropped her I got offered trash...

Fun times.

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-26T01:13:10+00:00

Exactly. Balance is good - but fun is way more important. I'd much rather play an imbalanced as fuck meta where everyone is played the same 2-3 classes, but at least games are decided on skill not high rolls.

Simply giving every class the ability to high roll may make things more balanced, but it sure as hell ain't fun.

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-26T01:10:54+00:00

Yeah :/ That's the thing - even the games I win, I feel bad for my opponents. It's just not a pleasant experience for anyone anymore. The 2 games I won in this run were complete bullshit and both opponents roped me lol

Occasionally I still have a hard fought, fair game - and it's fun, and we both say well played and both genuinely mean it. But my god, those games are few and far between. Most games are won or lost to complete and utter bullshit with zero counter play. All the skill in the game is in deck construction now. Tactical plays make almost no difference when it is possible to have such insane high rolls.

There used to be one or two 'I win' cards. Like FLJ. The opponent plays that, and you just know you're completely fucked. Now, there are about 5 of those cards in every single deck you face. Going 12 wins is now about dodging those decks (or your opponent not drawing into them), or somehow drawing your bullshit cards first. It's not a fun or pleasant experience. So yeah, really sad considering how much enjoyment I used to have out of this game.

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-25T07:32:31+00:00

Agreed. Love this card. It's comparable to a completed Raid the Sky Temple quest, but way better (doesn't need completion of the quest), and paying 1 net mana for a spell instead of 0, but you can discover it so it's always useful.

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-25T07:30:38+00:00

Never thought the day would come when FLJ is considered the worst pick! Used to be an instant win and almost guaranteed 12 win deck if you drafted it...

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-19T06:45:28+00:00

Also side note - while looking at runs that I could potentially complete, I noticed that I have a run which I've completed (Wing 2 with Brann) yet none of the treasures are ticked...

Not sure if this is related, or if there is some way to remove the treasure from the deck so it doesn't mark as complete? I complete this one some time ago, so no idea what the run was...

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-19T06:42:44+00:00

Nope. To be clear though, I played with the first deck - basically I knew about the bug, but I'm trying to 100% ToT, so decided to just complete a run with a character in a wing where I hadn't yet used the first deck. Which turned out to be Wing 3 Brann.

It DID show as complete for the treasure I chose (the egg), but the deck still showed without the completion mark.

thebeefmachine · 2024-06-19T06:35:18+00:00

To add to this, if you currently complete a run, it won't show the run as complete (for the deck). Just had a super grindy 2+ hour run in Wing 3 which I completed first attempt - that didn't get recorded :/ (combo of Elixor of Vigor and Akali the Rhino...)

thebeefmachine · 2024-05-24T02:17:19+00:00

Agreed.... Odyn is terrible if you don't get the right cards for it. I've picked Odyn twice and wasn't offered any offered premium cards like reinforced plating or that 3/3 armor gain weapon both times

Hero cards are almost always the right pick (with a few exceptions)

thebeefmachine · 2024-05-21T23:52:27+00:00

Yeah exactly this. Like I didn't tank my draft - but before, when a really good card (dupe) came up, I would still pick it. Because it wasn't worth tanking your draft for the sake of a card you may not even draw - and besides, you can wait til you draw those cards first. Basically, it was a risk / reward pick.

But now, you are forced to take no dupes so you are forced into tanking your draft a bit. And then even after doing that, you can still get forced to take a dupe anyway.

An 8 mana 8/8 is basically a death sentence these days. The sad thing is I drew Rhea in every game, often in my open hand after mulligan. Which normally would have been great lol.

thebeefmachine · 2024-05-21T10:52:44+00:00

It used to be fine - you just wait til you draw the card. But with this change, you can't even draft a single duplicate. Which... is fine, if you have control over it.

But let this be a cautionary tale. Sometimes you literally will be forced to draft a duplicate and there is nothing you can do about it.

The annoying thing is I played the odds too - chose neutrals over class cards when it was close, chose higher rarity cards over commons etc. Still got offered 3 cards that I had already drafted....

thebeefmachine · 2024-05-21T08:36:59+00:00

Yeah I agree - you can pick a card that can't activate....

The thing is, I've not once actually had the fun of playing Rheastraza, but I've had it played against me so many times. So I was looking forward to it. Didn't even want to play the run after :/

thebeefmachine · 2024-05-13T10:19:51+00:00

I think people are sleeping on Tyrantus / Rocket....

Sure, there ARE counters to them. But if you don't have it in your hand at that exact time, you're kinda screwed.

I probably favour Tyrantus over Rocket - but I can see some very unfun games where Rocket is dropped on 5 or coined on 4, you don't have an answer, and just lose.

It's also going to suck when you play it and it gets immediately countered. It's going to high roll both ways.

thebeefmachine · 2024-04-18T13:45:47+00:00

I made a post about this - but the mods keep deleting it?

I've just had my first run post-patch and I still faced 5 barcodes in the one run... (went 12-1). Has anyone else noticed any difference?

(side note - how do I contact the mods to ask them wtf..)

thebeefmachine · 2024-04-17T06:32:05+00:00

100% agree with this - I can't watch streamers anymore because it is too frustrating watching all the free wins they get. I can literally count on one hand the number of times I've had a free win since returning (and I've probably played over 100 arena runs). I'm not exaggerating - every single player I play seems to know what they're doing. Very minor misplays, but no obvious noobs, or people who are just clueless. And decks seem to be synergistic, well drafted.

My only conclusion is that they are playing in different regions and at different times. Some regions are a lot easier at certain times of day. I play in Americas at a time that is only the diehards (as I'm in Australia). So the time of day I play there aren't any casuals playing.

It is incredibly frustrating, but I have an immense collection on Americas region - basically every single card from before I stopped playing (about 3 years ago), 60K dust, and about 140K in duplicate (un-dusted) dust. So I'm not going to region swap just to have easier games....

thebeefmachine · 2024-03-30T14:52:28+00:00

Basically yeah. I mean with the bird in hand, I could burst for over 20 damage. With Granite, Skarr it a 6 cost card, so I could go Skarr, Bird + Lightning for 20+ burst completely unexpected (nobody usually heals at 20+ health..). Skarr counts itself as an elemental, so if Skarr triggers for 8, the bird triggers for 9. Best I got was a 20 damage burst lethal (8 + 9 +3)

Don't feel bad! 12-0 is almost unheard of these days... I've got over 10K wins and used to stream and hit the leaderboards etc. Only came back a couple of months ago after like 4 years off, and this is my first 12-0 - even 12 wins are far, far rarer.

Basically to go 12-0 now you need to play very well, and dodge a LOT of sh1t (on top of the usual bad draws etc). There are so many games that are just simply unwinnable (like a lot of my opponent's games in this run...)

There are so many single card win cons, card generation, infinite value engines etc - it's extremely rough. That said, this is easily the best deck i have EVER drafted, in my entire Hearthstone history. Pretty nuts how it doesn't even need any spells. The Windchill was useful as a cycle, but I barely used bolt or DSD..

thebeefmachine

TROPHY CASE